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From my experience in the schools, parental involvement is the number one issue of failure or success.
100% correct.
I'll say it again, I'm not sure which is scarier; the kind of country the right wingers think we live in or the kind they want to live in. If you extrapolate out most of thier ideas, the US winds up a third world country.
Because the wealthy parents most likely made their wealth by exploiting the poor. Not everyone that isn't wealthy is on welfare.
Here, in the richest county in the state, all of their lower skilled workers live out in the rural areas and have to drive in. I have heard that about other wealthy cities across the nation. Now, if those lower paid workers were making a living wage, they wouldn't be getting public assistance. Many people working qualify for food stamps and Section 8 housing because the wages are low. Think big box stores, just as an example, the profits they rake in and their employees won't be living in the same neighborhood as the ones that are exploiting them and having the taxpayers pick up the tab for their housing, groceries and medical care.
Just because a parent lives in Section 8 housing, it does not make them unfit. Many of the wealthy parents both physically and psychologically abuse their children, living in a nice house and going to a good school doesn't make that OK.
I really dislike the hateful tone of this thread and the ignorance about just who is fit or unfit, who deserves or doesn't deserve a good education. I cannot imagine anyone that is wealthy not having benefited from the very people whose children they want to deny a good education. How pitiful!
Yes, there are many facets to America's problems. It serves us nothing to "blame the liberals", "blame the rightwingers", "blame the rich", "blame the poor" (which, let's face it, is the new code word for Welfare Blacks).
I've known people who have worked all their lives, but they can't afford senior retirement apartments that unless they're supported by Section 8. That's not right. Our schools are only a small portion of the growing problem in America.
From my experience in the schools, parental involvement is the number one issue of failure or success.
Yes and no. I've seen situations in which parents of mediocre students rule the roost via the PTA, School Board, etc., and their preferences end up penalizing and detracting from appropriate education being provided for more highly capable students.
Ed Schools and educators have been trying to "level" the playing field since the 1960s out of "fairness" and the goal of "equal outcomes," and the result is a significantly dumbed-down society.
Note that not only is our population largely unable to think anymore due to the large-scale dumbing-down of our country's public education system, but the "equal outcomes disdain for excellence" education ideology failed to accomplish its social cooperation and cohesion goal, as well.
Yes. I'm going to quote my own post from a prior thread where I replied to you on a similar topic. Relevant here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nepenthe
That is exactly what has happened. It was happening throughout my public school experience. In elementary school I was in a separate one-day-per-week all-day class for gifted students. It was canceled. Later in life I learned about the politics of the decision and about how it had made the kids who weren't in it -- and their parents -- feel inferior. They *were* inferior, of course, but being something and being made to feel something are two different things.
We were excited at the start of our Junior year in High School because a college-level science professor was coming to teach us -- this guy was an amazing teacher with loads of experience using the scientific method and imparting knowledge to interested students. But that only lasted two weeks. What they did is they moved the most accomplished and tenured teachers to the "correlated" and "resource" level classes (below the "genpop" level) and then put the least capable teachers with the AP and Honors level students. This happened in other subjects too -- notably English and History -- but the science one hurt me most. We literally were "taught" that year by the coach of the cheerleading squad instead of this amazing teacher who had joined to reach bright minds.
(Luckily I had enough schooling outside of public school -- summer school, independent study, museum school every summer, programming school, zoo school, etc.)
The other thing that happened is that folks started having trophy kids, novelty children they could dress up and dote over and infantilize and protect from the big mean world. They started raising children instead of raising adults. Technology (internet, smartphones, social media) and the entertainment world did the rest, and so the roots of the regressive mindset becoming more common among today's 16-22 year olds are not hard to see.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Not even half of our graduating high school students are proficient at 12th grade math or reading skills.
Personal anecdote alert: My colleague at work has a new intern as part of a high school outreach program the larger firm is participating in in the community. So this kid is between his junior and senior years. My colleague tells me it's brutal. He's barely computer literate, having primarily used a phone for years. He's essentially unable to put together a complete sentence, having primarily communicated in the broken shorthand of texting and Twitter. His reading skills, at 16, appear to be about what mine were at 6. He didn't know what a spreadsheet was. And he has a dismissive, self-aggrandizing attitude. At least he's making $15 / hour at the internship (30 hours / week for 6 weeks). He definitely falls into that "not proficient at 12th grade math / reading -- although he has another year to go, it's highly unlikely that final year will bridge the gap. if he's at all representative of others of his generation on that bottom half we are well and truly screwed.
If the tax base for that district is very low, then why should they have good schools? If the parents want good schools then they should live in high-tax base areas and low-tax base areas!
Sadly, it is fashionable for states to allocate resources to poor women and men who have way too many children who just use the. schools as a free baby sitter so they can sit at home and watch TV. Middle-Class and Rich children get cheated at the expense of these poor families with five kids. The middle-class and rich kids are going to future tax payers and they get shorted.
I totally agree with this. Why should parents who work very hard for their children share their tax and school dollars going to other schools in the same district that have to allocate money for things like English language learners, behavioral health programs for children of unfit parents living in section 8 housing.
It is terrible that states give poor school districts extra money for what amounts to a free child care service as opposed to wealthy, rich districts where the students will be the next generation of tax payers.
Why should wealthy students who have good parents have to share state and local resources with welfare families living in section 8 with 5 kids?
More well-off districts already have their own schools.
The price of admission is being able to afford to buy/rent a house/apartment in (a) given zip code.
Easy to say that people should just move if they want their kids in better schools, but how do they do that OP?
Schools in the "better" zip codes in my area want for nothing. The schools are state-of-the-art.
Not so in the less desirable zips.
But I guess it's okay for kids to suffer because their parents earn average or below incomes.
Clearly the new victims in this country are those who "have."
I guess it's not enough to already have more than others.
They want it all.
Because the wealthy parents most likely made their wealth by exploiting the poor. Not everyone that isn't wealthy is on welfare.
Here, in the richest county in the state, all of their lower skilled workers live out in the rural areas and have to drive in. I have heard that about other wealthy cities across the nation. Now, if those lower paid workers were making a living wage, they wouldn't be getting public assistance. Many people working qualify for food stamps and Section 8 housing because the wages are low. Think big box stores, just as an example, the profits they rake in and their employees won't be living in the same neighborhood as the ones that are exploiting them and having the taxpayers pick up the tab for their housing, groceries and medical care.
Just because a parent lives in Section 8 housing, it does not make them unfit. Many of the wealthy parents both physically and psychologically abuse their children, living in a nice house and going to a good school doesn't make that OK.
I really dislike the hateful tone of this thread and the ignorance about just who is fit or unfit, who deserves or doesn't deserve a good education. I cannot imagine anyone that is wealthy not having benefited from the very people whose children they want to deny a good education. How pitiful!
Very well said.
It really seems like some want a permanent peasant class in this country.
Because the wealthy parents most likely made their wealth by exploiting the poor. Not everyone that isn't wealthy is on welfare.
Here, in the richest county in the state, all of their lower skilled workers live out in the rural areas and have to drive in. I have heard that about other wealthy cities across the nation. Now, if those lower paid workers were making a living wage, they wouldn't be getting public assistance. Many people working qualify for food stamps and Section 8 housing because the wages are low. Think big box stores, just as an example, the profits they rake in and their employees won't be living in the same neighborhood as the ones that are exploiting them and having the taxpayers pick up the tab for their housing, groceries and medical care.
Just because a parent lives in Section 8 housing, it does not make them unfit. Many of the wealthy parents both physically and psychologically abuse their children, living in a nice house and going to a good school doesn't make that OK.
I really dislike the hateful tone of this thread and the ignorance about just who is fit or unfit, who deserves or doesn't deserve a good education. I cannot imagine anyone that is wealthy not having benefited from the very people whose children they want to deny a good education. How pitiful!
Very Marxist post here. "Exploiting" them how? By offering them money to do stuff (offering them a job)?
Everyone deserves a good education. No one is getting one now regardless of how much money is spent. Many of the highest-funded school districts have the worst results. Witness Camden, NJ:
What needs to be done is to group students by ability/skill level so that instruction can be more specifically targeted to meet educational needs, and adopt a value-added achievement assessment model instead of a standards-based assessment model. Measure whether each student is making as much academic progress as they're capable of doing. That accomplishes two goals: Frees highly able students to excel according to their ability, and it doesn't punish teachers who have the struggling students classes. As long as struggling students are making the progress of which they're capable, the teacher is doing a good job regardless of standards-testing scores.
I'm very happy with the education my children are receiving in their publicly funded schools.
Very Marxist post here. "Exploiting" them how? By offering them money to do stuff (offering them a job)?
Exploiting them via removal of rights to collectively bargain for things like fair wages, benefits, time off, etc. You've seen the numerous anti-union posts here, yes?
I'm very happy with the education my children are receiving in their publicly funded schools.
Are you sure about that? It might not be what you think. Locals tend to overestimate the quality of their kids' public schools.
Have your kids been tested on a nationally-normed test yet, like the Stanford Achievement Test available for grades K-12? The results might open your eyes.
Additionally, many parents don't realize their kids got a crappy education until the ACT/SAT test scores roll in at college application time.
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